Meet the four author/illustrators featured in Allentown Museum's new exhibit at the museum's "Fall Festival: Worlds of Wonder" Sunday.

Admission to the museum is free during the festival from noon-4
p.m.

Explore the world of children’s graphic book authors Dave Roman, Eric Wight, Matt Phelan, and Raina Telgemeier in “Drawing on Character: The Art of Children’s Graphic Novels” on display at
the Art Ways Interactive Family Gallery through Dec.
29.

Dave
Roman, along with his wife Raina Telgemeier, will present an interactive look at his
inspirations, cartoons and book, "Astronaut Academy." In Art Ways, Eric Wight and Matt Phelan team up to entertain the crowd
with interactive demonstrations of cartoon drawing, and talk about techniques
on developing characters and storylines.

Also check out the magnificent paintings and sculptures of animals in the exhibition "American Wildlife Art," and visit Crayola Learning Center for wild adventures
in art.

A fourth-grader with a big imagination; a middle school girl with major
dental problems; and a boy struggling to survive in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s;
are three of the very different characters that came to life in exhibit which features cartoon and graphic artwork from the four
illustrator/authors from the genre that is growing in popularity among kids

“We feel graphic novels are a great way to tell a story,” says Kathy
Odorizzi, the museum’s manager of the Arts in Education and School programs.
“Graphic novels really engage kids and motivate them to read.”

The exhibit came together after Wight, a 1992 Freedom High School
graduate who wrote and illustrated the “Frankie Pickle” series, suggested the
idea to the museum staff. Wight, who started taking art classes in second grade
at Baum School of Art when it was located in the basement of the museum, has had
a long association with the institution.

“I’ve been going to the Allentown Art Museum my whole life,” he says. “There
have been so many great programs.”

Wight who now lives in Chalfont, Bucks County, suggested some colleagues, all of whom have artwork
included in the exhibit.

“They each have a different style and distinct voice,” says Odorizzi. “One
did a book for the younger set, another a coming-of-age story and a third
historical fiction.”

Images from Wight’s three books in the “Frankie Pickle” series that follow
the imaginative fourth grader, are featured in the show.

Wight, who has done animation for Walt Disney, Warner Brother., Cartoon
Network, Marvel Entertainment and DC, is working on a television show based on
“Frankie Pickle” for Canadian television and has a fourth “Frankie Pickle” book
in the works. He also is working on a new series about a cupcake with
superpowers, named Jiminy Sprinkles, which is planned for publication in summer
2014.

Also on display is original artwork from “The Storm In the Barn,” the
award-winning graphic novel by Math Phelan of Ardmore, Montgomery County.

Phelan already had a career as an illustrator for children’s picture books
like “Flora's Very Windy Day” by Jeanne Birdsall and the Newberry-winning “The
Higher Power of Lucky” by Susan Patron, when he wrote his first graphic novel in
2011.

“I had an idea for a longer story and though the graphic novel was the
perfect medium,’ he says.

“The Storm in the Barn” which tells the story of an 11-year-old boy living in
the Dust Bowl in 1937 won the Scott O’Dell award for historical fiction, the
only graphic novel to ever do so.

“It was quite an honor,” Phelan says. “ What was great was it recognizes it
as a book. Graphic novels are a particular kind of reading. They are very visual
stories. A lot of things are going on.”

Phelan followed up his first graphic novel with “Around the World,” about
people who tried to circumvent the globe in the 19th
century and “Bluffton,” about a young Buster Keaton who spent summers in
Michigan, both also historical fiction.

“I’m really interested in little pockets of history that you don’t hear
about,” he says.

Phelan and Wight will lead a graphic novel workshop for kids in December at
the museum.

“We’ll teach them fundamentals of making comics and let them run wild,” Wight
says.

Also featured in the exhibit are New York City based husband and wife Dave
Roman and Raina Telgemeier, both successful graphic novelist in their own
rights.

Telgemeier is the creator of “Smile” and “Drama,” graphic novels about a
middle-school girl. Both became New York Times bestsellers She also adapted and
illustrated four graphic novel versions of Ann M. Martin's “Baby-sitters Club”
series.

Roman is the author/illustrator of the “Astronaut Academy” series, about an
elementary school in outer space, and writer of the graphic novels “Teen Boat!”
and “Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery.” He also is the coauthor of two New
York Times best-selling graphic novels, “X-Men: Misfits” and “The Last
Airbender: Zuko’s Story.”

Wight hopes the show will make families more aware of the wide variety of
graphic novels that are being published for children today.

“Many people are familiar with comic books but not really familiar with
what’s available in graphic novels,” he says.

Odorizzi also says kids may be inspired by what they see.

“We want to use the graphic novel exhibit to inspire creativity,” she
says.

Admission is free Sundays and $12; $10, students and seniors and free, 5 and under, other days. Info: 610-432-4333, www.allentownartmuseum.org